The articles and essays in this blog range from the short to the long. Many of the posts are also introductory (i.e., educational) in nature; though, even when introductory, they still include additional commentary. Older material (dating back mainly to 2005) is being added to this blog over time.

Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Holisms (3) – Definitional Holism

One

A
definition isn't just an appendage to the word under
scrutiny. The word would have no meaning if it weren't for the
definitions we supply in order to facilitate understanding.

A
word isn't atomic in nature. We can't say, for instance, that the
word ‘freedom’ means, well, freedom and leave it there.
Neither can we accept (on a naturalistic reading) some kind of
abstract and non-individuated meaning or proposition which would
allow us to escape from our linguistic system. Even if we were to
allow for abstract and non-spatiotemporal meanings or propositions,
they would still become material or concrete (as it were) as soon as
they were expressed and communicated – which would need to be done,
evidently, in some natural language or other.

Two

It
seems counterintuitive, at least initially, to think that the primary
relation is not between words and things, but between words and other
words. This isn't so surprising when, for example, we think of
the classic example of defining ‘bachelor’ as ‘unmarried man’.
However, these words are taken to be synonyms. But try explaining or
defining a word like ‘freedom’ again. This certainly doesn't have
a reference in a strict sense of the term. Thus we are moved on,
immediately, to words like ‘liberty’, ‘choice’, ‘will’
and so on. And try getting further without bringing in terms which
are themselves as much in need of defining or explaining as the
original word ‘freedom’. Of course it may be the case that we
arrive back at the word ‘freedom’ or use this term as part of
some of the other definitions.

This
word isn't as problematic as words like ‘thing’ and ‘experience’.
Try defining those words without reference to things or experience.

It
may follow, then, that if a word has a definition which includes
terms themselves not defined (or even if we provide simple synonyms
for the definiendum)
then the speakers may not fully understand the word’s meaning. They
may not even understand their own usages of the word in question
because any full meaning (or full understanding) can only belong to
the linguistic system itself. Any definition or explication of
a word's meaning must reach an arbitrary finishing point if the game of
understanding is to begin in the first place. And that stopping place
will be contingent, if not exactly arbitrary.

Three

Words
are defined by other words, which are themselves defined by other
words. No word, concept or thing is ever captured in a “finite
web” of meaning. This is Karl Popper on this problem:

“The
derivation [of a term] shifts the problem of truth back to the
premises, the definition shifts the problem of meaning back to the
defining terms (i.e., the terms that make up the defining formula).
But these, for many reasons, are likely to be just as vague and
confusing as the terms we started with, and in any case, we should
have to go on to define them in turn; which leads to new terms which
too must be defined. And so on, to infinity.”

That
must surely be the problem with definitions: they too will contain
terms which themselves will need defining.

A
similar problem is apparent when it comes to a logical argument and the
premises on which it is based. That is, the premises of any argument
may themselves depend on further premises and conclusions that may
act as justifications for the validity or truth of the initial
premise. Thus we have on our hands a regress of justification.
However, the game can't go on forever.

This
is why we must, at some point, simply accept premises, arguments or
definitions if we're to get going on our philosophical or logical
enterprise. The premises that we accept, however, needn't be seen as being
“self-evident”, “indubitable” or anything like that. They
simply need to be the starting points of reasoning if we are to avoid
an infinite regress.

In
a sense, it's precisely because definitions depend on their own
un-defined terms that all words (or nearly all words) are inherently
somewhat vague. That's because the meaning of a single word can be said to
depend upon all the meanings of all the words in the symbol-system to
which it belongs. We can't have a precise definition if the
definiendum itself contains terms that aren't themselves
defined. Though even if we do in fact define the terms in the
definition, these definitions will themselves require elaboration and
definition. And so on indefinitely.

The
holist position on this problem will be that we must take into
account the symbol-system to which the words under definition belong.
But this too is problematic. How can we really take on board an
entire symbol-system each time we want to define a term? Does this
mean going on an infinite regress? Or if not an infinite regress,
does it mean taking on board all the other words in a symbol-system?
(Or perhaps a large sub-system of the larger system?) So, in
that respect, the regress won't be infinite: it will be circular.
This essentially means that we will arrive back at some of the terms
which we actually started with.

This
means that there are jut as many problems with holism (or
coherentism) as there are with atomism.

Similar
points to those above were raised by, amongst others, Bradley in the
19th century. Because of the problem of holism, Bradley concluded
that no statement could be entirely/absolutely true. Similarly, we
may now say that no definition is ever free from vagueness precisely
because of its containment within a larger symbol-system.